Friday, 20 February 2009

FWC will participate as a partner in the newly approved European Union project called “Active Citizens for Intercultural Dialogue” or ACID for short. The project aims at: giving citizens the opportunity to interact and participate in constructing an ever closer Europe, which is democratic and world-oriented, united in and enriched through its cultural diversity, thus developing citizenship of the European Union.

The specific objectives of the project proposal are:To support citizens' panels in all participating countries which enable the active interaction and discussion among citizens on the importance of intercultural dialogue at European level;To collect the opinion of citizens on a key European challenge for the future such as the intercultural dialogue in a multicultural Europe;To create mechanisms that enable European citizens to develop civic competences, to formulate their views and opinions on the European integration process in the form of recommendations for policy makers at European level;To encourage the dialogue between European citizens and the institutions of the EU, empowering citizens as regards EU policies and their impact, and ensuring appropriate follow up of citizens' opinions by the EU institutions.

The target group of the project ACID will be young people and young adults (aged 18-30 years old), migrants and refugees, adults and aged people, politicians, representatives of the civil society (NGOs, cultural associations, trade unions), teachers and educators from the participating countries. Special attention will be paid to involving ordinary citizens of different demographic, social and professional backgrounds and to involving citizens' who would not have spontaneously participated in projects of a European nature.

The countries participating in the project are: Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Romania, and Portugal. FWC associates will travel to Romania 1 March for the kick off meeting. Contact Larry Fergeson for more information.

The European Commission approved the application for a new project to be coordinated by Future Worlds Center and led by the Youth Centre Union. The 18 month long project is called "Jumpstart - Youth Peace Campaign in Cyprus" and aims to increase the number of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot youth actively participating in the Cyprus reconciliation process. It is funded by the The European Commission as part of its Reconciliation, Confidence Building Measures and Support to Civil Society under the CYPRIOT CIVIL SOCIETY IN ACTION Programme.

The Overall Objectives are to:• Increase confidence building between the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot youth (18-30)• Create opportunities for youth to actively engage in reconciliation activities• Promote inter-cultural dialogue and its methods and language as a concept and as the means for envisioning a future Cyprus• Enable Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot youth to challenge their own stereotypes and perceptions as well as to develop the capacity to challenge those of the community at large

FWC, as the European leader in Structured Dialogic Design Processes or SDDP, will conduct a deeper analysis of issues concerning youth, participation, reconciliation processes in Cyprus. FWC will enable the youth activist group to develop an action strategy for the campaign and to identify possible risks along with alternative solutions and contingency plans. Based on an effective methodology, the SDDP sessions will ensure that all key issues are taken into account, all members of the youth activist group have voiced both their plans and concerns, and that the group democratically agrees on the action plan to be implemented.

FWC associates Kerstin Wittig and Yiannis Laouris travelled to Sofia/ Bulgaria last week to implement a 2-day training for teachers on Development Education. The training was organised by the Bulgarian C.E.G.A. Foundation, in collaboration with FWC, ScotDec and KADE and took place within the EU-funded project 'Accessing Development Education'.The training brought together 18 teachers from Sofia and other regions of Bulgaria and introduced them to the concept of Development Education, which is still fairly new to most teachers in Bulgaria and other new European member states. The participating teachers had the opportunity to explore a diverse range of teaching resources, methodologies and activities, and to discuss how these would best fit into the Bulgarian school curriculum.The Accessing Development Education project is compiling and online database of successful teaching resources on Development Education and is currently producing a teachers' manual, which will be published in Cyprus, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Scotland and Ireland. For more information about the project, please contact the project coordinator here.

Friday, 6 February 2009

FWC in collaboration with CYTA on the CyberEthics project and as part of the Safer Internet Day 2009 events invites you to a conference on February 9th. For more information please click the image to your left and contact Georgina Shitta, CyberEthics Coordinator at Tel +357 22 873820.